Yes, 31 women have been killed this year. But more DV victims die another way

Amina* was just 22 years old and in a long-term abusive family environment when she tried to take her own life.

She died two days later from her injuries, leaving a five-month-old daughter behind.

Australia is grappling with the 31 deaths of women this year, including high profile family violence homicides.

But many more victims die at their own hands than at their abusers.

These victims haven't registered in either the official or unofficial records of family violence deaths, but they share the same causal factors - coercive control, threats, financial abuse, physical violence, and an appalling lack of options for the victim.

Victoria Police wants the state coroner to reclassify three suicides as family violence and shine a light on the "hidden toll" mounting alongside the murders.

Amina came to Australia from Afghanistan in 2015 on a spousal visa. She lived with her husband, his parents, his two brothers, and one of the brothers' wife and two children.

In the two-and-a-half years between her arrival in Australia and her death there were a series of violent incidents involving Amina's husband as well as his family members, a coronial report found.

Amina also self-harmed on several occasions.

Soon after the birth of her daughter, Amina told a maternal child health nurse her "home situation could be better". She had no social supports, no family in Australia, no friends, no access to transport and couldn't speak English.

The nurse referred her to an enhanced service for more support, but six weeks later her father-in-law assaulted her and she fled the family home.

Her husband stalked her to a McDonalds car park where he "forcefully slapped" Amina as she cradled the four-month-old infant.

Amina was referred to child protection and 24/7 specialist family violence services Safe Steps, but the critical lack of refuge beds in Victoria meant she and her daughter ended up in a motel.

Notes taken by child protection record her mother-in-law saying "'it is well within the rights of the family to kill her given she has disobeyed her husband".

But days later Amina chose to leave the emergency accommodation and return home.

Her husband was banned from the house under a family violence intervention order, which he breached repeatedly.

But both Safe Steps and child protection noted Amina wanted her husband to return home because caring for the child alone was too difficult.

On the day she died Amina made several attempts to leave in one of the family cars.

Exposure to family violence is a contributing risk factor for suicide, Victoria Police Family Violence Command Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway said.

"In many ways, it is the hidden toll of family violence," she said.

The police are hoping the state coroner will re-assess three suicides, including one murder-suicide, as domestic or family violence related.

"This work aims to see what more we can do as police to prevent these tragedies occurring and save lives," Ms Callaway said.

"It is important for people experiencing family violence to know they are not alone and there are specialists out there who will help them become safe."

Between 2009 and 2012 almost 35 per cent of Victorian women who died through suicide had a reported history of family violence.

Dr Carmel Hobbs, from the University of Tasmania, surveyed young people who were in domestic violence relationships as teenagers.

"Suicide attempts were really common. Nine of the 17 young people I talked to had mentioned suicide and self harm, and for a number they had mentioned multiple suicide attempts," she said.

"The way that young people described these suicide attempts was as a direct response to what they were experiencing.

"Many of these teenagers were living in constant fear, the impact that has on your sense of safety, and the long term psychological and physiological impacts of that is really huge.".

Dr Hobbs said the impact of abuse did not stop just because the relationship did.

"[Victims said,] 'I've still got his voice in my head, I still tell myself I'm worthless, and I'm terrible and nobody will ever love me because that's all I heard.' That's so hard to shake without support," she said.

People can feel a sense of control when they decide to take their own life, Charles Sturt University psychology researcher Dr Rachel Hoggs said.

That may be particularly appealing for victims who feel trapped by controlling partners or ex-partners.

A victim may also become psychologically exhausted, leading to a cognitive narrowing which makes them focus on one thing.

They may also blame themselves for the abuse.

"Somebody experiencing domestic violence often exhaust all possible explanations for why they might be the problem before they are willing to consider that the perpetrator is the problem," Dr Hogg said.

"It's quite common for people who are expressing suicidality to think that if they weren't here anymore then everybody else would be better off."

In rarer, and even more shocking cases, a victim of family violence may become a perpetrator.

Filicide is when a parent kills their child.

One child is killed by a mother, father or step-father every fortnight in Australia - making up only three per cent of child deaths.

An Australian Institute of Criminology review of filicides from 2000-01 and 2011-12 found men and women were about equally likely to murder their children.

Nearly three times as many male killers (43 per cent) than females (16 per cent) had domestic violence histories.

A Monash University study analysing data from the same time period identified major risk factors as "mental illness (especially in young mothers), domestic violence inflicted by fathers and stepfathers, parental separation, past child abuse, substance abuse and past criminal history".

Dr Hogg said a victim who kills their own children and themselves might be trying to take control and think they are protecting them.

"They don't see ending the child's life as the penultimate form of harm that can be done to a child, even though it is," she said.

"[That] is not to excuse any of these kinds of harms."

There were 25 women and 13 men killed by an intimate partner in 2020-21, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

A male was the primary domestic violence abuser in most cases - including 71 per cent of those in which the female was the killer.

The rate of filicide could be up to eight times higher for First Nations children and about nine per cent of filicide perpetrators were Indigenous, of which two-thirds were men.

One-in-five domestic violence murder victims and 28 per cent of perpetrators in 2022-23 were Indigenous, despite only making up three per cent of the population.

The Counting Dead Women Australia projects tries to record every reported femicide - murder of a woman based on her gender - in the country.

The group is not able to track suicides caused by family or domestic violence because it is difficult to record at the time of death, co-founder Dr Jenna Price said.

"[But] I'm really hoping someone does that because... then we would know what the hell is going on," she said.

Family violence researcher Professor Kate Fitzgibbon, from Monash University, said "we do not adequately capture the prevalence of lives lost to suicide in the context of domestic and family violence."

"There is a need to ensure that state-based domestic and family violence death review teams, and coronial court inquiries also pay attention to suicides in the context of intimate partner and family violence," Dr Fitzgibbon said.

"These deaths are inherently preventable."

An ACT government spokesperson said it would be difficult to review all domestic and family violence deaths.

"Ascertaining whether the experience of domestic and family violence was a contributing factor to the suicide is highly complex," they said.

Dr Hogg said many family violence survivors were misunderstood by the mental health system.

Perpetrators can weaponise diagnoses or hospitalisations against victims, such as during custody disputes.

Any young person in contact with the health system should be screened for family and domestic violence, Dr Hobbs said.

Services aware a young person has been exposed to domestic and family violence should be connecting them to mental health services.

The Victorian government held a Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2023.

By adopting recommendations from that report, the state has addresses suicide in ways not found in some other states.

The coroners court investigates all suspected suicides and maintains a register.

The Victorian Suicide Prevention Framework 2016-2025 references domestic and family violence.

A government spokesperson said the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) framework means support service professionals regularly assess whether victim-survivors are at risk of suicide or self-harm.

*The victim's name has been suppressed by the Coroners Court of Victoria.